Explorathon is a set of interactive ‘Meet the Researcher’ events happening all over Scotland on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th September. It’s part of a Europe-wide programme called European Researchers’ Night, there’s a particular emphasis on European funded research but any researchers can take part.

Do your plans for the curriculum include developing children and young people’s knowledge, skills and understanding of the First World War? Do you intend to do some intergenerational work to promote children and young people’s Gaelic language skills? Has your tracking of children and young people’s skills in technology shown a gap for which an opportunity to create a film would be useful?

A grant of £250 is available, as part of the Scottish Government’s five-year World War 1 Commemorative Programme, to mark the centenary of the First World War. It aims to help children and young people develop their understanding of the causes of the First World War and impact on people’s lives.

The Digital team will be at this year’s SLF with an exciting offering of activities available to all delegates across both days.

Visit the Education Scotland Stand

The Education Scotland stand will host a schedule of Digital Literacy and Glow focused drop in sessions available on both days. Digital is about supporting learning and teaching so we have arranged a timetable of inspirational and practical sessions for you to join in, learn something new and take your experiences back to the classroom.

To allow you to plan ahead we have put together a timetable of activity which will take place on both days. You can find this below.

STEM Expo

On day 2 of SLF visit the STEM expo in the Lomond Auditorium. The team will be leading the Tinker Table to help you build, create, design and inspire ideas to embed digital in every day learning and teaching.

Sessions run from 10.45 – 11.30 and again 13.15 – 14.00

We look forward to welcoming you to the Scottish Learning Festival.

The Digital Literacy and Glow drop in sessions will take place on the ES stand on both days of SLF:

Time

Presentation

10:00

(10:30 start on day 2)

Improve workload and workflow

Come along and find out about the benefits of using Glow tools to save you valuable time and move towards a better work/life balance.

11:00

Capturing Pupil Voice

Learn about formative assessment tools to capture the learning of young people to inform next steps and give them feedback.

13:00

Internet Safety and Cyber Resilience

Understand the latest risks and threats and gain access to a wide range of resources, support and guidance through Glow.

14:00

Digital Creativity

Create and share interactive stories, animations, personal accounts, presentations and more through the use of Glow tools.

As one of the key priorities in education, Developing the Young Workforce related contributions will feature prominently again at the SLF 2018 (19 – 10 September, SCCC, Glasgow). This year’s main focus will be on School-Employer Partnerships and STEM related learning around DYW.

Here is a list of key seminars:

Wednesday, 19 September

Title

Presenters/education establishment

Room/ Time

School-employer and Local Authority partnerships: A partnership approach to delivering DYW

Tarbolton Primary School in South Ayrshire use ‘Seesaw’, a student driven digital portfolios, for learners from to instantaneously share and record learning experiences and achievements from within and out with school.

Children and young people use mobile devices to evidence their learning, upload personal targets and reflect on their progress . This is then continuously shared with their teachers and parents in order to review their learning.

Seesaw is also used for uploading homework, sharing letters or information as well as daily communications.

Lynsey Bradford, PT at Tarbolton Primary School says:

“Seesaw has radically changed how we log our pupils learning journeys. It is instant and accessible from all devices and ticks the digital platform buttons for all children. They want to see and share their learning and achievements now and this app allows them to do that in a safe and secure way.”

We are proud to share with you today the new and improved official Glow website Glow Connect

The site provides Glow customers with information on the educational benefits of Glow, easy access to the main Glow login screen, and help and guidance on the various services Glow offers. We hope you enjoy using the site and find it valuable for keeping up to date on all things Glow

The next release of Glow Blogs is scheduled for summer 2018. In order for all responses to be considered in time for the release, the deadline for survey responses is the 30th November. All responses received after this date will be collected for consideration for future releases of Glow Blogs.

We are looking to gather as much feedback from our Glow users as possible so please complete the form and let us hear your ideas. Why not share this survey with your friends and colleagues to make Glow Blogs even better!

STEM Education and Training Strategy for Scotland has now been published

A STEM (Sciences Technologies, Engineering and Mathematics) Education and Training Strategy was launched in the Scottish Parliament last week by Ms Shirley-Anne Somerville, Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science. The Strategy, together with a STEM Evidence Base Report, is now available to download from: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/10/1386/downloads

A central focus on the strategy is to enable everyone to develop STEM skills for learning, for life and for work. It provides a new emphasis on career pathways within STEM sectors and to grow successful partnerships between schools and employers through the Developing the Young Workforce Programme. The strategy also includes a commitment to expand Foundation, Modern and Graduate Apprenticeship Programmes to enable many to pursue jobs and careers in STEM through these pathways. This strong focus on skills and careers will further enhance national efforts to Develop the Young Workforce (DYW) and embed employment and career management skills in the curriculum through the Career Education Standard.

A wide variety and resources including exemplars around DYW and STEM can be accessed on the National Improvement Hub here.

The following four good practice exemplars have been published on the National Improvement Hub to highlight initiatives that help learners requiring additional support to develop skills and find employment.

Exemplar 1: Enable Scotland’s ‘Stepping Up’ programme

This innovative employability programme offers comprehensive support for young people aged 14 to 19 who have learning disabilities which takes participants from an initial investigation of the world of work, through a process of discovery and planning for their future, to engagement with employers in real workplace settings. Find out more here.

Exemplar 2: ‘Thinking Digitally’ – a new resource

This credit rate module by Lead Scotland allows candidates to develop relevant digital skills and build confidence operating in online environments. More on this here.

Exemplar 3: ‘TOPs’ – training opportunities for young parents

This programme run by Rathbone Training, a UK-wide voluntary youth sector organisation which supports young people aged 16 to 24 who have disengaged from society, aims to help young parents in their personal development. More here.

Exemplar 4: ‘Community Action and Leadership Award

This is a course created by the charity Lead Scotland so that more people can learn how to influence change and make a difference within their communities. More information here.

Last September schools in Midlothian undertook an innovative and exciting new project which would allow them to transform the way that they learnt in their classrooms. Through consultations with local architects, extensive research and planning in their classrooms the schools created their own inspirational learning spaces!

Throught the year the classes had the opportunity to undertake various projects which would help develop and enhance by their new learning spaces. The first project was a STEM eco-classroom project. This is a project created by the Engineering Development Trust to help the pupils to develop their science, technology, engineering and maths skills. During this project, the pupils were challenged to build an eco-friendly classroom. They needed to research eco-friendly classrooms that have already been designed in schools and then use this research to create their classroom in a way that helps the environment.

In an exciting opportunity for the schools, teachers were invited to a training session with VEX Robotics. During the session the teachers got to use programmeable robots, making them move, make sounds and flash their lights! This wasn’t just for the teachers as they went back to school and used the robots with the pupils who could programme them straight from their iPads. In March pupils from two Midlothian primary schools – Loanhead and St David’s – travelled to the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham to take part in the VEX Robotics UK Challenge. The VEX Challenge requires teams to program robots to carry out a series of complex tasks while competing against 40 other teams from all over the UK. Both schools won awards for high level of competancy in programming their robots!

The final project that the schools undertook was a CSI inspired activity where the pupils had to solve the Mayberry Mystery Crime. They visited the Mining Museum in Newtongrange which was the scene of a terrible crime and using their skills they had to solve the mystery and name the culprit. To help keep the pupils working together they used a Yammer group to keep their investiagtions up to date!